My views on religion have ... drifted ... a lot over the last year on Less Wrong. It isn't that any specific belief has changed, but all of my amorphous impressions about religion have shifted so that whereas I used to think that religion had value and even "deep wisdom" hidden away here and there, if only I could find it, I now consider this much less likely. I do believe value and deep wisdom can be found co-locally with religion, but this seems in spite of, rather than because of, religiosity.

The problem with religion is epistemology and authority. Being right about a few things (the golden rule, ritualising big life events) doesn't make you right about the other things (bigotry, detrimental policies due to unchecked idealism).

However, I still have the same objections to 'new atheism' I began with. Perhaps now I can describe them more effectively.

I think that the Non-Existence of God is the weakest and least relevant argument that New Atheists make, but it is the one they focus on nearly exclusively, especially with theists.

The non-existence of God is a weak argument because -- especially depending on how you define God -- it's not clear whether God should exist or not. It's also a weak argument because it polarizes the discussion and builds defensive walls in ways that questioning other beliefs would not. I think it would be most effective to allow that God exists -- as say, the "first cause", whatever it is -- and then try and deduce together what his properties are. They're pretty unexciting given a scientific worldview...

The non-existence of God is an irrelevant argument because the problems of religion aren't belief in God, but problems with epistemology and authority. Telling a theist that God doesn't exist sounds most absurd to a theist, but if you ask a theist whether humans sometimes interpret God incorrectly, they'll have to admit 'yes'. So you would already be where you wanted to be -- at a place where they are also wondering, how do human beings make sure they interpret reality correctly?

I am looking forward to a talk next week given by a theist at a nearby college 'giving a response to New Atheism'.

I have also decided to go to a Unitarian service this Sunday. On my way home from work on Tuesday, I saw a billboard that said, "If you like free coffee and discussion, join us". That night I was thinking, "I like coffee" and, "I like discussion" but worried about what they could discuss that would be of interest to me, given my burgeoning discomfort with religious thinking. On my in to work this morning, I read the other side of the billboard that read, 'This week's topic: Atheism". So I'm definitely going.

Over the next week, I'll share the main points and my impressions of the talk and the Sunday gathering here in this thread.